Bottle washing / rinsing

Hi Saferpakers,

of course we are rinsing bottles before filling with product.
Most manufacturers do it.
We're also trying to give evidence that the rinsing process is effective.

We've been searching the Internet for a Standard, but were not able to find anything. We asked our collegues of mother Company: they are in the same situation.
We've tried UNI, the Italian Standard Institute, and they answered that no standard is planned and no workgroup is discussing this topic.
We tried with bottle rinser equipment manufacturers: no way to get out

At present We have developed our internal standard: we put small glass pieces into the bottles entering the machine and check the outlet of the equipment.
IMHO it's a way to get round the problem, but it's not satisfactory.
Are we really the first working on this subject ? I can't believe
I would be very glad if someone could help me in finding this sort of standard or simply discuss this matter in Saferpak. :)
Thank you very much. Regards. Franco

Hi Franco,

Yes why not let's be the pioneers. How about posting some pictures of the process? If there is contamination of the bottle what is it general dirt, dust debris? or is it glass? Who can introduce the contamination you or the bottle suppliers? How are the bottles delivered to you - sealed? Do your suppliers practice positive release? do they check / rinse? Have they got a HACCP system in place?

You've started something now!


Simon

Why not let's be the pioneers.

Well Saferpakers,

let's start from the beginning.

Most of our glass suppliers are ISO 9001 certified and produce according to agreed specifications.
They keep records of QC data and send us QC certificates.
Hygiene requirements are not included in the QC certificate, although we're stressing it a lot.
We all know that FIFO warehousing is essential for hygiene of empty bottles.
HACCP is not in place at present, but they're starting projects.
BRC IoP is not in place, nor known up to the best of my knowledge.

Saferpak is largely known because of my personal advertising. :D

In spite of that, CA followup is often disregarded and the most popular approach to design and development seems to be trial and error.

The bottles are palletized and totally sealed with plastic film. I mean they're not sealed one by one. There's a patent on that matter and some wine producer is using bottles sealed one by one, but we're not doing that.

The dirt could be foreing matter: carton because of direct contact with the mouth of the bottles, insect because of imperfect sealing, dust coming from the environment, rarely oil because bottles are blown with compressed air, glass particles because of breakage occurring during any step of the process.

These particles are actually the most dangerous for human health.

See for instance FDA compliance foreing matter.

The point is that we're checking the effectiveness of our blowing system with an internal method and we're going to buy a new equipment without a standard method to evaluate its performance. I think we will make an agreement with the supplier of the equipment.

Saferpak is largely known because of my personal advertising. :D

Good day fellow Saferpaker. Thank you Franco keep up the good work, we all know the most cost-effective form of promotion is word of mouth, and it's my own personal favourite. :D

I'm know some members of the forum are in the bottle industry and I'm sure they will add their thoughts if they can. I'm no expert but what about if you get the bottles supplied with a sheath over the open end of the bottle?? I'm innovative but not very practical.

Perhaps I'd better leave it to the experts.


Simon

Hi Simon,

I thought I will re-visit this topic and share one of the interesting CAC/RCP of Codex. Although, this RCP guideline is meant for bottled water, why not for others i.e. juice beverages

This is the first time I doing an attachment in this forum. With some guidance from you, I hope it will come through OK.




Charles Chew

This is the first time I doing an attachment in this forum. With some guidance from you, I hope it will come through OK.

It works fine Charles.

Thanks,
Simon

I have a similar problem, and also couldn't find any standard method so this is the closest I got to...

1 Glass 5 Slivers up to 1cm in length
2 Wood 3 Slivers up to 2cm in length
3 Dust eg Can Lacquer or Cigarette Ash. 1 ml (approx ¼ teaspoon)
4 Cigarette Butt. 1
5 Paper 5 Pieces of 1cm square
6 Water 50% of the container volume

Each test can is passed 5 times through the system to test. The pass is no visible contamination. Most work fine but 3 sometimes gives a very fine residue - I think because the contaminant picks up moisture during testing.

Does anyone else have similar issues with this?

Cheers

Old topic. Just wondering about status on this. We rinse our bottles. I must say, tests we have been running are very time and labour intensive. Here's what we have done, and what we aim to do.

Have done:
1. Dye test
We use a strong dye to coat the insides of bottles, then run them through the rinser to test overall coverage within the bottle. We use a spectrophotometer to measure residue that remains.
2. As mentioned by others above, we place hazardous particles of various sizes and run them to determine removal efficiency.

Most people I have spoken with have told me rinsers are never 100% effective, but I am wondering what most people have found their rinser effectiveness is? I suppose since we all use various methods for this it may not be a very accurate comparison, but I am just curious. When we first got our rinser, it ran at 98%, but within a month it declined to 90%.

Also, we use many different bottle shapes and sizes. We plan to run the different types and see how efficiency varies with bottle size and shape. This will be a long and arduous task. Has anyone done this here? Any suggestions?

I am also surprised by the lack of information on rinsers. So many companies use them. For us this is also a CCP. I am curious about what other companies do to monitor this as a CCP.

Cheers,
Dena

When we first got our rinser, it ran at 98%, but within a month it declined to 90%.

Hi Dena,

may I ask you how do you measure the rinser effectiveness, i.e. how can you say 98% or 90 % and so on ?

TIA. Regards. Franco

Dear Franco,

The above comments are primarily oriented to physical contaminants. Not sure if this is OT and I realise this is not a very proactive solution for a rinser however as a user of drinking water in large recycled plastic containers, I have occasionally done my own supplier control by sampling / evaluating incoming truck loads just on basis of micro.count. The results were sometimes sufficiently disturbing (though not specifically a safety risk) as to require discussions / changes with/of the supplier.

Rgds / Charles.C

Hi Dena, you still around? I know one or two members are very interested in this subject.

Hi Dena, you still around? I know one or two members are very interested in this subject.

I am in the botling industry, we bottle liquor. Our site is somewhat unique in South Africa as we wash on line using 80% second hand bottles, line speeds are 5 000to 12 000 units per hour depending on size.

There is no standard, but if we prove sufficiently that the risk to consumer is dealt with then that is sufficient. We rely on the final rinse in the washers to ensure that the bottles are clean of foreign objects. The pressure must be within a certain specification to comply. Operators check and record this on their process control sheets hourly.

We have gone the step further of integrating CCP recording into our process control.

From what I have seen of rinsers in our other sites that have them, is that they are notriously unreliable. If you can guarentee that they are working (every nozzle) at the correct pressure it should be enough.

Thanks for your input Justin.

Regards,
Simon

Sorry was away for a bit. We run a lot of bottles in the test and spend a lot of time prepping a considerable number of 'contaminants'.
Effectiveness of 90% was on dye removal efficiency. 90% of dye was removed based on absorbance readings indicating concentration of dye remaining.

Just stumbled across this thread. Anything new here?

 

 

 

My company builds bottle rinsers.

I use the FDA bottled water container and PMO standards (HPC requirements) for microbial limits on containers and container contact materials like separating sheets and film. As far as foreign material hazards I would agree with any of the homebrew methods above with an in-house study where you put known contaminants into bottles and see how effective the rinser is at removing them (get 100 bottles and you can at least determine if you provide a 99% removal rate).

 

Really depends on your goals in mind, whether you are only concerned with choking hazards, all foreign material, or microbial contamination.

 

@BBurns, it would be great if your company provided efficacy data with your rinser and a model container it's designed for :). It's a huge advantage to your business if you can save me a validation study and make the equipment more plug-and-play with confidence for efficacy.